LAURO Interview By ANNA KROUPINA

Transcription By ADELINEPhotos By DESSY DI-LAURO

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INTERVIEW

hen you can’t slot an artist into a single, specific genre, you know that you’re dealing with a unique and creative musician. In harmoniz-

ing the sharp beats of 1920s jazz and retro with a thumping R&B groove, Dessy Di Lauro and her partner Ric’key Pageot fit the bill! The duo created a fresh, unique sound that’s rich with history and culture, dubbing it as “Feathered Frohawk Futuristic Art Deco-Centric Harlem Renaissance Hep Mu-sic.” With Dessy’s electric voice and Ric’key’s sharp produc-tion skills, the groove factor of Dessy’s latest album, This Is Neo-Ragtime, is set to full-blast and never drops for a sec-ond, giving rise to a delightfully infectious album that is sure to get you tapping and swaying along to the blare of trum-pets, the stride of a piano and Dessy scatting. Dessy moved to the U.S.A. from her hometown Montreal, Canada to per-form on two spectacles with the prestigious Cirque du Soleil, in-between which she released her first solo EP, A Study of a Woman’s Soul. Dessy’s single Why U Raggin, which appears on the This Is Neo-Ragtime album, won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best R&B/Soul Song in 2010. She currently lives in Los Angeles with Ric’key, where she regularly performs with her Neo-Ragtime Jamboree at Harvelle’s Nightclub. Her shows are eclectic productions that beam the audience to a sort of parallel universe complete with headpieces, garters, a taste of steampunk fashion and a fresh take on a remarkable period of music.

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“I’m a lot more playful on stage, and it’s more of an acting thing that I do. It’s not really like theatre, but I’m very animated...”

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TVM: Is being a musician something you always wanted to do?Dessy Di-Lauro: Pretty much. I would say that when I was about five years old, it’s something that you instinctively know! My mom heard me sing and put me in a choir not too long after. I got my start very early at that age. I was totally emerged in music. All I wanted to do is sing all the time and perform. I guess it showed because my mom put me in a choir not too long after that.

TVM: I read that your parents were into a lot of old school music. What kind of genres were you ex-posed to during your childhood?DDL: I was exposed to so many different genres. My background is Cuban/Italian/Brazilian, and I was born in Montreal. It was a mix of all those cultures that influenced me. I listened to a lot of Bossa Nova, Salsa, and Afro-Cuban but primarily, my main influ-ence was Gospel. I grew up in a Pentecostal home and also being in a choir, I listened to a lot of Gos-pel music. My mom’s favourite stuff was soul music, R&B, Gospel, and jazz so those were the main musi-cal influences in my house. [My family] also listened to very old stuff from the 20s and 30s. Vinyl records got passed down through generations in my family. We had this incredible collection of vinyls that were from the 1920s and 1930s, like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller all this kind of old stuff also influenced me, stuff that I am now recreating and making my own through my music. I am so blessed to have had this incredible spectrum of music in my house.

TVM: So you were born in Montreal, but you went to the States to perform with the Cirque du Soleil.DDL: Yes! I left to work with Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba in Florida. That was my time to branch out. Being from Montreal I was supposed to know what Cirque du Soleil is because everybody else does [laughs]. I didn’t know what Cirque du Soleil was at all. I had no idea what this company did. I just thought it was some typical circus kind of thing. So when they called me and said that there was music, I [realized that I] knew some of the musicians that were in the band because they were from Montreal and I had worked with them before. [Cirque du So-leil] was looking for a hip hop singer. I was not really a hip hop singer! I sang choruses for hip hop groups, [for example] I had written music for Dubmatique and I sang on their project, but when I think of hip hop, I think of rap and it’s not my thing. So I went into the head office for Cirque du Soleil and I had a brief audition. They loved what I did and hired me. It was a pretty amazing experience with Cirque du Soleil. I’ve never worked with acrobats and I’ve never been in that kind of context, so it brought a theatrical aspect to what I do know that I integrate in my own shows.

It was very good for me, it was very nurturing and I got a lot of theatrical experience out of it.

TVM: You started out with La Nouba and you lat-er worked on Delirium with them. Performing and singing on the Cirque du Soleil stage is a very dif-ferent experience than that of a singer/songwriter, and you mentioned that you did learn some things from those shows. What did you learn specifical-ly and what are you applying to your shows right now?DDL: I would have to say the biggest thing is play-fulness and theatricals. My show is a very specific style of music, and it’s my own sound. My husband Ric’key Pageot and I, we created this sound which is a mix of 1930s Harlem Renaissance music mixed with today’s contemporary R&B, and a little bit of hip hop. We all dress up and the show, it’s an entire experience. With the Cirque, I played five different characters on Delirium. I had to change personalities for each [character]. So with all of that, it got me really comfortable to come out of myself and push myself more. I’m now taking dance lessons because there was a dance influence as well. I’m a lot more playful on stage, and it’s more of an acting thing that I do. It’s not really like theatre, but I’m very animat-ed, so that’s what [being a part of Cirque du Soleil] brought.

TVM: Very cool! As for the sound that you created, you describe it as “Feathered Frohawk Futuristic Art Deco Centric Harlem Renaissance Hep Music”. It’s a mouthful! Can you give some insight into what sounds and elements make up your music and what makes this sound you?DDL: My partner and I tried to figure out how to take an old sound and make it new. The ragtime influence and the 1930s influence is a lot of stride piano; it’s a certain style of piano playing. So we took that ele-ment and flipped it with heavy hip hop beats. For ex-ample, we do Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher”. We took that and threw in a really heavy hip hop beat, added a soulful voice and mixed it with a scat, which is an element that is almost inexistent nowa-days. It’s done in a modern way that is true to me. I don’t copy anybody or emulate anybody. It’s truly a combination of these elements; “neo” meaning “new”, but “old” is also one of the elements. Another element is branding. It’s really important for me. My style of dress and what you see image-wise is that same combination [as my music]; it’s futuristic, but it also has all these elements of 30s. Everything is a mix of neo-ragtime, stride piano, hip hop, the heavy beats... It’s a little more on the electric side than what it used to be back then. This is a perfect mesh of the old and the new.

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